New Nicolson Institute
The plans for the new school are available here as a Powerpoint.
The file is 66Mb, so it will take about a long time to download.
Any views on the proposals? I'll add mine when I get the file downloaded and I have time to look at the plans carefully.
The file is 66Mb, so it will take about a long time to download.
Any views on the proposals? I'll add mine when I get the file downloaded and I have time to look at the plans carefully.
15 comments:
the proposals are horrendous. Absolutely gargantuan. Theres no wonder why the architects (3D Reid by the way) didnt add their name to the presentation.
The scale of the building is just far too big - the form is hidieous, with a hip ended metal roof and those stupid windows. The historic buidlings have been almost ignored - and dwarfed.
The public route of Springfield road has been blocked off. This is unacceptable, also adding (yet another) football pitch.
The building doesnt take into regard the gental slope of the site and rather they are going to cut into the land over a large area - thats a portion of budget which could be spent elswhere.
I imagine the interior spaces will be very corridor like and dull, lifeless and horrible to be in. The building will be horrible to be around, and frankly, it will make the council building look mardinally more attractive....
Downloaded the PDF, it's only 4MB and I assume has the same info.
I like it. The historic buildings have been incorporated nicely and seem offset enough that they're not overshadowed. The top of the spire on the clock tower is almost at the same height as the new roof. Springfield North is elevated up a nice grassy slope that forms one side of the Pentland Square Trapezium and Matheson Hall forms a side of another square.
Hard to tell from the drawings, but I think it'll look good from the ground and give the school more of a connected feeling.
Some people are hugely negative (1.47) the building sits well in the site. The one concern I have is the addition of another roundabout on Sandwick Road. Lewis drivers have no idea how to use a roundabout.
2.21
Look at it in relation to the council building. Next time your there imagine that building on the site - the footprint is massive.
Theres little merrit in it I dont think - and hope the planners reject it. To be honest, PPP schools are uninspirting, but we could be the exception to that rule. Why no local architects appointed?
What is the Pentland Building?
4:43
Springfield North and the Old Gym
3:24
"Next time your there"
"Theres little merrit in it I dont think"
"PPP schools are uninspirting"
Have you ever been in a school?
Any mention of a canteen the size of large airfields in order to keep the thugs in school at lunchtime?
I think the new plans look brilliant - very nice indeed. They seem quite well thought out as well.
The comment - "The public route of Springfield road has been blocked off. This is unacceptable, also adding (yet another) football pitch." Another football pitch?? The current pitch is always fully booked and is frequently double booked. I take it you don't like football. Look around you, the amount played on the island all year round is enormous. Another pitch is needed and will be FULLY BOOKED!!!
The only reason there is so much football on the island is because the school staff don't have the 'balls' to promote anything else, maybe they are afraid that they will lose their jollies to the mainland. There is far too much emphasis on football on the island, has anyone ever thought of promoting another sport to the same extent, you ain't anybody on Lewis unless you can kick a ball, male or female.
I think the architecture is that of a retirement home - a pretty large one at that.
I find the scale of the building in relation to everything around is too overwhelming. They could get off with it with an interesting shape followed by interesting, inovative form.
However it frankly looks pathetic in my view. The window patterns look frankly amateurish, the roof looks huge - the materiality isnt in keeping and adds to the retirement feel of the place.
I feel also alot of logisitical difficulties, not in the construction, but in the working of the surrounding buildings once its erected. The sports centre will be hemmed in, with a smaller car park (granted a new one has been constructed across the road, how many council employees of the white house will use it). The council building itself will be overshadowed.
If you look at Mid Yell school in Shetland that can show you whats achievable in terms of good architecture, or resonable architecture at least, in achieving a good learning environment. ALso look at Hazelwood School - using materiality and form to stimulate learning. Granted, the Nicolson is on a different scale in terms of pupil numbers - but all the architects and clients need to do is TRY for something inspiring no?
i note from p38,39 that it will be not just a school for the living...
More seriously, p24 gives the first size of the building, in case 1:47 was in any doubt!
would a garden area (science, home ec, canteen) not be a good idea? perhaps even a green roof?
Let's just be grateful it doesn't have a flat roof, like some recent additions to the Western Isles property portfolio. We all know that they're SO suited to the weather conditions we get here.....
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